Expect The Unexpected
by sparky8me2
Summary: Lilah gets some news that she's going to have to share with Wesley. Lilah's POV. Post Habeas Corpses- Added: Part 3
1. Default Chapter

Title: Expecting the Unexpected  
  
Author: Sparky8me2  
  
Disclaimer: These people don't belong to me. I swear. They belong to Joss and the nice people at Mutant Enemy.  
  
Summary: Lilah gets some news that she's going to have to share with Wesley. Lilah's POV.  
  
Spoilers: Mainly Habeas Corpses- up to Calvary.  
  
Distribution: and a few other places- if you want it, go ahead, just let me know where it's going.  
  
Shit.  
  
These goddamn things don't work right. I've taken five of stupid things, and they've all come out the exact same way. Line, plus sign, whatever. Either way, the message is loud and clear.  
  
Positive.  
  
Pregnant.  
  
Shit.  
  
I don't get it- it's not like Wesley and I haven't been careful. God knows the last thing either of us needs is a kid. The last thing the world needs too- another screwed up brat. Neither of us were cut out to be parents. We both come from screwed up families. We both lead screwed up lives. Not only that, but lives that are way too dangerous for a kid.  
  
How the hell am I supposed to tell him? My hands are shaking like you wouldn't believe and I feel kind of queasy at the idea of having to have this sort of talk with him. I sit down on the edge of the bathtub with my head in my hands, staring at the not quite half a dozen home tests and packages scattered around the bathroom.  
  
Maybe the tests are wrong. It sounds a bit unlikely, I know, but maybe it could be something else. Hell, I don't even care what else. I'm going to need to make an appointment with my doctor. Hopefully she'll be able to give me some answers.  
  
Except the appointment with my doctor won't be with my doctor since she was killed with everyone else at the firm. Besides me, anyway. Thanks to Wes. There's no words to describe how happy I was to see him. If he hadn't shown up when he did the Beast would've killed me. Slowly and painfully no doubt. I can't help but be a little grateful, even if he was being an asshole.  
  
Get out of town, he said. Change my name. Yeah, right. Because I'm really going to turn tail and run when the Beast that nearly did kill me, and successfully hunted down the rest of Wolfram and Hart is still roaming loose. That's a somewhat disturbing thought. It wasn't just people in the building it slaughtered. Everyone on the pay roll. Even people who were out sick. I want it gone. I want my life back.  
  
Even as the thoughts about the Beast enter my head, my hand shoots to the non-healing wound in my side, where it pinned me down and started slowly sank a claw into me. I find myself hoping it won't hurt the baby that doesn't exist quite yet. That hopefully doesn't exist at all.  
  
I'm not cut out for this parenthood thing. I'm sure as hell not the milk and cookies, PTA attending domestic type. This kid that doesn't yet exist deserves better than what I could give. Even in a non-post-apocalypic world.  
  
God, I hope the tests are wrong... 


	2. Part 2: Wes' POV

Title: Fatherhood  
  
Author: Sparky8me2  
  
Disclaimer: These people don't belong to me. I swear. They belong to Joss and the nice people at Mutant Enemy.  
  
Summary: Wesley's POV. Lilah tells him she's pregnant and he's worried about the sort of father he'd make. I think there's going to be still more to this, but I haven't decided to go the heavy angst route of sticking closer to canon and killing off Lilah yet or not...  
  
Spoilers: Mainly Habeas Corpses- up to Calvary.  
  
Distribution: and a few other places- if you want it, go ahead, just let me know where it's going.  
  
I don't believe it- I'm going to be a father. Even more unbelievable, Lilah's going to be a mother.  
  
Oh, good lord.  
  
I don't know how we're going to handle this. I'm certainly not cut out for fatherhood. My childhood was more than unpleasant enough, and my father... Well, let's not get into that, shall we?  
  
I know Lilah's fears revolve more around Wolfram and Hart, the Beast, the coming apocalypse- it's not just her life in danger any longer, after all- but myself, I'm more concerned about the sort of life we could give a child. Demon hunting is an extremely dangerous profession, for starters. Certainly not the sort of environment I'd want to expose my child too. Particularly after what Connor had to experience.  
  
More than that, I worry for my own fitness as a parent. Will I make the same mistakes my father made? I know the sins of the father may be revisited upon the son... but God, I hope not. The mere thought of becoming anything like that monster turns my stomach.  
  
The thought of my child locked up under the stairs to deal with the spiders and the darkness and the musty smell... That such a thing might happen by my own hand...  
  
My comfort lies in the fact that I know Lilah would never allow anything like that to ever happen. She is already beginning to grow protective of the life inside her. I could tell from the look in her eyes when she told me she was pregnant. The way her eyes narrowed when I started to say that this was perhaps not the best time to have a child. I didn't tell her I thought this could be the worst possible timing conceivable.  
  
"Too fucking bad, Wesley," she had snapped at me. I knew she was angry with me before she even knew she was with child. It wasn't the time for apologies, however. Besides, I don't quite see how I owed her one anyway. After all, breaking up is a natural process. It happens.  
  
Instead, I merely wrapped my arms around her and held her close. "All right, all right..." I tried to be as soothing as I could. I smiled a little. "I guess we're going to be parents in a few months, then..." 


	3. Part 3: Flashback to 1986 Lilah's POV

Title: Flashback  
  
Author: Sparky8me2  
  
Disclaimer: These people don't belong to me. I swear. They belong to Joss and the nice people at Mutant Enemy.  
  
Summary: Snippet from Lilah's past- her POV  
  
Spoilers: None this chapter.  
  
Distribution: and a few other places- if you want it, go ahead, just let me know where it's going.  
  
**  
  
August, 1986  
  
The heat was oppressive that summer, especially in August- it was one of those days where the media warned you against going outside for any length of time unless it was absolutely necessary. Just one week after my birthday, and I found myself sitting in the clinic a couple seats away from my stepfather. I stared at the grey walls and tried to ignore him- I didn't want to think about any of it. Not how screwed up this all was, not the bruises, not why I was there... One little mistake, one little encounter, at the end of the school year and it lands me in this nondescript little clinic way the hell out of town because it wouldn't do at all for anyone to find out Richard Sheppard's stepdaughter went and got herself knocked up.  
  
The procedure wasn't that bad; the nurse took me to a private room and left me to change into a hospital gown. She did a sonogram while we waited for the doctor, which I opted not to look at- it wouldn't change anything.  
  
The doctor was very kind and casually noted the bruises on my face and arms as the nurse took my heartrate and blood pressure. "Wow, those're some shiners, huh?"  
  
I nodded. "Yeah- I took a bad fall during soccer practice. I bruise pretty easy." Neither were true- I haven't played in any sports since I was in grade school and I don't bruise that easily. But what was I going to tell him? That my stepfather's an asshole that smacked me around until I agreed to come here? It's a decision I would've made on my own anyway. I made a stupid mistake, but I'm not going to pay for it for the rest of my life, and I'm sure as hell not going to make some kid pay for it too.  
  
"So you are here because this is a decision you want, right?"  
  
I nodded again. "Yes."  
  
He smiled a bit, evidently relieved. "All right. We'll get started then. We're going to give you something to help you relax, so you'll feel a bit of a prick on your arm and when you do, I want you start counting backwards for me from a hundred."  
  
***  
  
I really don't remember much else- I woke up in the recovery ward and the nurse was there again to make sure I was feeling all right and gave me some tylenol for the pain- even most of what happened there is kind of fuzzy.  
  
I do remember Richard tried to talk on the way home, but I brushed him off. He always tried to do that- make some token gesture of kindness after he hit me, and I always brushed it off. Why would I want anything to do with him? Jackass.  
  
So I think it was around then I decided all this was going to stop. I wasn't going to let myself be victimized any more. After all, I was strong, I was at the top of my classes and it was only going to be one more year until I went away to university. I already knew I was going to study law, but that wasn't really the point. The point was, as soon as I could make him, that bastard was going to pay for everything he made me suffer.  
  
I admit, I felt myself growing cold from the day my parents decided to divorce and my mom took up with this creep, but this? Taking away one of the biggest choices in my life that should've been mine to make? Oh, no. That's not tolerable and it was certainly a choice I'd never let anyone take from me again. 


End file.
